TULSA, Okla. — For the fifth time in his career, Christopher Bell laid claim to a home cooked preliminary night victory during the Lucas Oil Chili Bowl Nationals, dominating John Christner Trucking Qualifying Night Thursday night.
The Norman, Okla., native and two-time defending Chili Bowl winner led all but one lap en route to the win, his fourth straight Thursday score at Tulsa Expo Raceway and his 52nd midget victory.
With another victory plaque in hand, Bell will prepare to chase his third Golden Driller on Saturday night.
“I kind of felt rusty tonight,” said Bell, who raced midgets in New Zealand in the month leading up to the Chili Bowl. “I don’t why that was. In the qualifier, (C.J. Leary) was outstanding, and he got away from me, and even (qualifier runner-up Justin) Allgaier was really good, and I couldn’t really do anything with him.
“The longer you’re on top, the harder it is to stay there, and the easier it is to lose,” Bell continued. “I’m going to do my best to try to figure out why I didn’t feel as good as I normally do and why I didn’t run as good of a race as I normally do. We’ll get everything right and go after this deal on Saturday.”
While the box score might indicate that Bell’s path to victory lane was simple, his win didn’t come without a big scare from Shane Golobic, who pitched a massive slider on Bell in turn three to take the lead coming to two laps to go, but couldn’t hold on in the end.
Golobic led lap 23 by a bumper at the start/finish line, but Bell came back to the inside entering turn one, retook the lead and drove back away over the final two circuits to notch the win.
“The ending was a lot busier than I wanted it to be, that’s for sure, but Shane made a heck of a race out of it,” noted Bell. “I hope the fans enjoyed that one. … It was a lot of fun because I won, but it wouldn’t have been much fun if I had lost.
“I think running later in the week was a benefit with what we were able to learn from my teammates, but it seemed like I had the hardest time winning among my teammates, because Kyle (Larson), Rico (Abreu) and Logan (Seavey) all seemed to make it look easy,” Bell added. That definitely wasn’t the case tonight. I had a lot of competition all night.
“Going into Saturday, I’m in a really good spot, but these guys are all hungry for a Driller.”
With Bell’s victory, Keith Kunz/Curb-Agajanian Motorsports is now four-for-four in preliminary night victories during Chili Bowl week. The team has won seven of the last eight Chili Bowl qualifying features overall.
Golobic hung on to finish second and secured his spot in Saturday night’s 55-lap feature, becoming the first representative from Clauson-Marshall Racing and the first non-Toyota driver to make the field.
Though disappointed at not coming away with the trophy, Golobic was pleased and gave plenty of credit to Bell.
“It’s kind of frustrating sometimes racing with Christopher,” said Golobic, who also earned a spot in Saturday’s feature. “He’s just so damn good. He’s unreal. I feel like I’d have more midget wins if he’d just go over and race NASCAR.”
C.J. Leary, driving a car fielded by Alex Bowman, finished third ahead of Danny Stratton and Josh Most.
Tracy Hines, the 2005 Chili Bowl winner and competition director for ThorSport Racing, came back from a wild flip early in the night to race his way from the C main all the way into the A main. He crossed the line in seventh.
To see complete results, turn to the next page.
